What Makes a Successful Marketing Campaign?

You’ve got a new, innovative product that is going to change your company…and the market. You’re planning to launch it next year. Part of your launch plan includes a marketing campaign focusing on the unique features of this product. While you know the product intimately, you’re a little stumped as to how to promote it. That’s where a marketing campaign comes in. A marketing campaign is devoted to promoting a specific subset of your launch (or marketing) plan. And quite frankly, you could deploy multiple marketing campaigns at one time. But if so, all of them should have a similar message for a cohesive branding effort. So, how do you go about creating a successful marketing campaign for your new product (or service, for that matter)? There are a few key elements that all complete marketing campaigns should include.

Set Objectives

What is it that you want this program to achieve for your business? This is where you iron out the details of your campaign. Be specific; instead of the stating a goal of ‘increase sales’, call out ‘increase sales by 25%’. Set a time frame for the campaign as well; ‘increase sales by 25% within 6 months’. These details help define your goals and enable you to obtain improved metrics to make sure you’re getting the ROI you expect.

Set a Budget

After deciding what the promotion is about and setting your objectives, you need to set your budget. Knowing how much money you have to spend helps determine the duration of the campaign as well as the strategies used within it. There are free tactics that work, like search engine optimization, backlinks and bloggings, but you shouldn’t rely on those alone. A healthy mix of paid and free strategies will work nicely in tandem and provide different avenues for reach.

Choose your Strategies

Once your budget is set you can research and select your tactics for campaign. When considering what tactics to use you will need to keep a few things in mind:

What is your Pitch? – What is it you’re trying to get your audience to do?

Who is your Audience – Who are you targeting with this campaign.

What is your Content – What type of content works best with your audience and what will your message to them be?

A marketing campaign should definitely incorporate a number of various channels for maximum impact and results. For example, when considering your audience, should you use social media, and if so, which platforms? Will there be an email component to directly reach your audience? Will you only use digital marketing channels or does your audience warrant outdoor or print outlets? If you plan your campaign using multiple channels, replicating the brand message throughout various tactics provides your target with clear brand reinforcement.

Create a Timeline

In order for a campaign to be effective there needs to be a continuous flow of information. Writing down an action plan with the timing of each tactic helps to assure there are no gaps or overlap in information dissemination.

Determine Measurements

This is probably the most important part of your campaign. After all, if you don’t know how it performed, you can’t move forward with a similar, or even completely different, program. If your goal is sales oriented, it’s easy to track if sales met, exceeded or fell flat of the goal. However, if your objective is to get more users to your website or increase search engine rank, then you may want to include online analytics. Setting goals and tracking conversions on Google Analytics provides consistent monitoring for accurate reporting.

Once you have your concrete metrics in hand, you can determine if it was effective or not. If not, you could decide to tweak it and try it again, or take another approach all together. Whichever method you choose, measuring your results will guide you along the way.

If you are interested in learning more about marketing campaigns and how they can help grow your business, give Marketing Relevance a call at 847-259-7312. We’ll work with you to uncover your business goals and get you on your way to meeting them with an appropriate and creative marketing campaign. Visit our website to find out more or reach out so we can start the conversation.

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Whether you’re looking for specific services or turnkey solutions, you need Marketing Relevance. Because we’re small, we’re agile; we fit seamlessly into your company as your marketing department or as your web design guy, graphic designer, search engine optimization team or social media manager. Our team of experts provide the guidance you need to achieve hard line results.